Paediatrics (childrens) research

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The Evelina Children’s Hospital has top clinicians involved in all kind of paediatric research, including

• allergy
• asthma
• cardiology
• neuroscience
• orthopaedics
• public health

Research studies

• Tourette's and tics

  The paediatric tics and Tourette’s service team at Evelina are involved with an international project to study the genetics of Tourette's. Two genes are known to be associated with the disorder and the project is investigating whether there are any more.

  They are also developing innovative treatments with the help of children and their families. Part of this research involves ‘Health Tracker’ – a web-based tool which allows the team to collect regular health and quality of life-related data. The children and their families fill in online forms on the Health Tracker tool to update the team on their progress such as symptom severity and quality of life. This means the team can also monitor the patients from home, giving reassurance to the patients and their families and providing a timely and responsive service.

• Tiny tickers

  Monitoring how well children’s hearts are developing and working is a challenge because there is so much change as children grow. For example, a small 12 year old may have the same sized heart chambers as a big 10 year old, and the blood pressure results of a 3kg baby will be different from a 50kg teenager’s. Working out whether a cardiogram is normal takes time, and needs access to the available data and information.

  To speed this up, the paediatric cardiology team at Evelina Children’s Hospital are working on a smartphone app so that clinicians know straightaway whether the results are normal or not.

  Clinicians will be able to enter information like the patient’s age, height, weight, blood pressure, and the app will calculate whether the heart reading is normal, or above or below. It will even give an idea of how serious it is, whether results are just outside the normal range or way out.

  As well as quickly highlighting when there is a problem – and providing reassurance when there is not – the app will help to track longer term developments, such as whether a child's aorta (the main artery of the heart) is growing too quickly.

• EAT -  investigating food intolerances

  Children’s allergy specialists at Evelina Children's Hospital are conducting the first large-scale study investigating the impact of when allergenic foods are introduced to babies’ diets.

  During the study, allergenic foods are introduced to the 3-6 month old babies’ diets whilst they are still being breastfed. The researchers are investigating whether this will reduce the number who will develop food allergies by the time they are 3 years old.

  The results may help prevent children in the future from developing food allergies and possibly other allergic diseases, such as asthma, eczema and hay fever.

  You can find out more at www.eatstudy.co.uk.

• Using botox to manage pain after surgery

  The paediatric orthopaedic team are investigating whether Botulinum Toxin A or BTXA (also known as botox) injections can help reduce pain and discomfort after hip surgery in children with cerebral palsy (CP).

  Children with CP feel more pain after surgery than unaffected children, and may also have muscle spasms that aggravate pain after surgery.

  Once the children are asleep under anaesthetic, but before surgery starts, their hip muscles will be injected with either BTXA or a placebo of saline (salty water). After surgery the children will all be followed up through phone calls, clinic assessments, and ‘paediatric pain profile’ questionnaires.

  This comparison with a placebo will show if BTXA really does reduce pain after surgery.

  This is a ‘double blind’ trial, which means that neither the patients nor their clinician will know whether they had the placebo or BTXA injection until after the results are gathered.

• Predicting and preventing premature births

   

  The risk of pregnant women giving birth early can be accurately measured with a simple cervical swab, according to research from our preterm surveillance clinic. This test will reduce distress for women who would otherwise have received unnecessary treatment.

  The swab measures the level of a protein known as fetal fibronectin (fFN). If the protein leaks out of the womb into the cervix, the likelihood of premature labour is increased. fFN levels reliably indicate whether a woman is likely to give birth prematurely.

  fFN is already used as an indicator of likely preterm birth, but not in a quantitative way, meaning that many women are treated unnecessarily. This updated test is more precise and gives a more definitive diagnosis, meaning we can reduce the need for low-risk women to stay in for observation or get treatment when they don’t have to.

  Our hospitals were the first to use the newer version of the test, with its more accurate, quantitative capabilities.

   

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